“Let’s conquer the world!” Ul once proposed. Yara thought and agreed. She adored large-scale villainies. “World, you’re conquered!” she said in a whisper, so that the next table would not hear. Quietly and peacefully in a small subbasement cafe, they finished celebrating the capture of the world.

Having the appropriate questioning look on his face, the fat waiter approached with a plate. He fancied that they had hailed him.

“You won, but it’s not about that. Keep the change!” Ul generously told him.

The waiter blinked. “What change? Only sixteen roubles from you!” he said.

The next day Ul and Yara taught Rina how to fall from a horse. They tied a cord to her belt and yanked her off while chasing Icarus in a circle. Right after the fall, Yara had to overtake Icarus and jump onto the horse’s back while on the run.

“Don’t grab the stump! Soft fall, don’t resist!” Ul howled.

Rina was all covered in mud. Sand crunched in her mouth. Jacket, pants, and boots were all the same colour – grey. So was Icarus’ foaming back. Rina slid down. Ten falls. Twenty. Twenty five. “Not enough!” shouted Rina. “Not enough! Again!” Yara began to worry and looked questioningly at Ul. She did not remember such energy in any novice.

Finally, either Ul overdid it or Icarus, running smoothly till now, pulled too zealously. After drawing an arc, Rina fell into the puddle and could not get up. “You’re sadists!” she shouted in a ringing voice.

“We’re hdivers. Get up!” Ul again pulled the cord.

Rina burst into quick, short tears, like rain with the sun. Yara took the cord away from Ul and went to Rina. To console. To change tears into laughter. Over the summer, Yara and Rina had become very close. Each saw in the other her own solution, her missing part: Rina, explosive, boyish, quick to flare up but simmer down at the same instant, and Yara, calm, slightly cool emotionally, very consistent.

Rina was still lying in the puddle. “Great!” she said in a suspiciously cheerful and clear voice, turning over onto her back. She slapped the puddle. “‘We’re hdivers.’ Great! Super!”

“What’s super?” Yara did not understand.

“The principle itself. Simplification of truth to its essence, without any disguising coquetry! Well, can say that it’s to writing like processing coffee in letters. Or to fighting, that this one fella beats another on the head using his extremities, until by chance he gets to the switch… We’re hdivers! Ha! Hdivers!” She scooped mud from the puddle and began to dribble it onto her forehead.

“You’re getting hysterical!” Yara quietly warned her.

“And you only just noticed?”

Someone whistled like a robber, with two fingers. Vityara appeared by the stable. “Ul, Yara! To Kavaleria!”

“Why?”

“You said it, dude! I have no idea… I was sent for the senior hdivers.”

Gaining strength with the lion, Yara pulled Rina like a carrot out of the puddle. “We’ll be there soon. You’re okay? You’ll take Icarus in?”

“Aha.” Rina caught up with Icarus and sprung stomach first onto its back. She rode along this way – head on one side, feet on the other – slapping the horse’s rump. Gentle Icarus, they could get away with such things with it.

Ul and Yara had already rushed to Kavaleria.

The office of the director of HDive somewhat resembled Beldo’s apartment. Not by the presence of sofas swallowing like quicksand and chatty skulls, but by the rigidity of the clearly defined zones. A tub with a dwarf pine tree, a seedling Kavaleria brought back from Duoka, divided the office into two clear poles.

The garden bloomed in the south. The seedlings spread over multi-tier glass stands: violet leaves in little glass jars, young boxwood, newborn eucalyptus, and yellow roses. Between them lay shovels, pruning shears, watering cans of different sizes, and other miniature equipment. Countless china figurines of ducklings, kittens, and human children were also crowded there.

The northern part of Kavaleria’s office began from the palm tree. Even an ordinary pencil had the right to be here, only based on necessity. The minute this necessity disappeared, the pencil also vanished into thin air together with it. If a chance violet strayed into here, Kavaleria would personally send it a steel ball from a schnepper. She had no time for violets here, because now, in the northern part of the office, Kavaleria was raging. Detecting the approach of dangerous minutes in the barely noticeable vibration of her voice, clever Octavius tucked in its tail in advance and hid behind the bushy liana.

“May we?” Appearing in Kavaleria’s office, Athanasius, Ul, and Yara, as experienced hdivers, first of all found out in what part of the office its mistress was. It turned out to be in the business section. Octavius hid behind the tub, solely the tail was spied outside. Kuzepych was sitting at Kavaleria’s. His eyebrows like brushes were moving angrily. He was like a boatswain flying into a rage. After exchanging a couple of words with Kavaleria, Kuzepych left.

“Someone wrecked the beehive at night. Boards scattered, honeycombs trampled. Now Kuzepych is knocking everything together anew. But honeycombs, it goes without saying, are beyond his abilities,” said Kavaleria, not looking at anyone.

“And the bees?” Ul began to fret.

“The bees didn’t suffer,” Kavaleria interrupted. “Nevertheless, the beehive is destroyed. Nowhere for them to live and nothing to eat. That the bees are golden doesn’t mean that they feed on diamonds.”

Octavius began to growl agreement behind the tub. “Don’t echo, emperor!” Kavaleria told it. The emperor subsided.

“Kuzepych is sure that it’s Gorshenya. Its tracks were around the beehive. One can see that it was trampling there all night… And as ill luck would have it, the bees only recently began to depart for novices! Now they’re worked up, angry, and it’s also incomprehensible how it’ll be. Possible they’ll gather much fewer than the usual four teams of five.”

“You think that Gorshenya…” Yara began.

“I think nothing!” Kavaleria dryly cut her off. “Gorshenya has been in HDive for three centuries. It chases lovers, creates the necessary extreme sports for the novices, and prevents them from trampling the flowers! In general, Gorshenya is Gorshenya. It’s the symbol of HDive. No other like it.”

“What do we do now with Gorshenya?”

Kavaleria began to snuffle. “For the time being… I emphasize, for the time being… nothing. But if it continues to go on doing such things, we’ll have to part company with it.”

Athanasius became agitated. “Has Gorshenya explained anything?”

“I killed an entire hour in conversation with it,” said Kavaleria with annoyance. “Babbles something incomprehensible, ‘Walked, walked, touched, touched! Belly hungry does not eat!’ Likely we should be grateful that it didn’t guzzle the hive! A bow to the ground to him!” Kavaleria said with irritation and, after opening the upper drawer of the desk, handed an envelope to Athanasius. “Hold this! You’re the best of all to take care of this. Here’s the name of the girl chosen by the golden bee. She left yesterday, before all these events. Find her and establish the circumstances… Ul and Yara, you get busy with the beehive! Help Kuzepych! I don’t worry about the hive itself; the honeycombs trouble me. Also protection. If Gorshenya comes again at night, where is the guarantee that it won’t ruin the new one too?”

“And if…” Ul began.

“Let’s do without the ‘if’! You’re not a spartan!” Kavaleria cut him short. “Set up a spatial trap by the beehive! Only don’t get carried away. I still haven’t forgotten how Kuzepych was left high and dry for a week on the island in the White Sea.”

“Rodion set it up then,” Ul gave it away. “I was only in charge. But then he himself asked to protect the cases of condensed milk.” Yara grabbed his sleeve and pulled him to the door.